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internet explorer, firefox, input, button

8^th of August 2005

I sincerely hate Internet Explorer sometimes. I never like it. Today it really pissed me off. If you use multiple <button> tags in one form, think again. It doesn't work in IE like it should do [...in Firefox]. If you have a form like this:

<form action="showRequestVariables">
<button type="submit" name="button1">Button1</button>
<button type="submit" name="button2">Button2</button>
</form>

Then, which ever button you press you'll get these request variables if you use Internet Explorer:

button1 = "Button1"
button2 = "Button2"

In Firefox you only get one; the one you pressed. Doesn't that seem logical? The Firfox way I mean.

To solve the problem and tame the IE bastard you'll have to loose the <button> tag and go for a <input> tag instead:

Then you get the more sane behaviour you'd expect from a web browser.

Disclaimer: The spec (is too long to read) could prove me wrong but I feel pretty confident that Firefox has got it more right in this instance.

Comment

95 comments so far

quan - 9th August 2005 [«« Reply to this]
well, you might want to try adding a "value" to the button tags you used...or better yet, why not just simply use <input>???????????????????

Peter Bengtsson - 17th August 2005 [«« Reply to this]
The value attribute on the button tag is browser ambigious, meaning that the IE sends a different value than Mozilla. (IE sends the value and the content of the tag)

Anonymous - 23rd May 2006 [«« Reply to this]
why not just simply use <input>???????????????????

simple, semantic markup

<button> is much more samentic than <input>

also provides some css benifits

Anonymous2 - 1st June 2009 [«« Reply to this]
why not just simply use <input>???????????????????

there should be a way to set a button's caption different from it's value

is supossed to think that <button> was created to resolve this

Peter Bencsik - 30th August 2005 [«« Reply to this]
IE makes you suck again. I have the same problem with it. I have a form with multiple <button>some text</button> tags, like this:
In-silico research (<button type="submit" name="removemethod" id="removemethod" value="3">-</button>),...
In Firefox if I press the button, I get these post values:
removemethod=3
In IE:
removemethod=-
So it always send the text between the <button></button> and not the value.

Peter Bengtsson - 30th August 2005 [«« Reply to this]
Exactly. Perhaps it's not IE's fault but the <button> tag's fault. Either way, it can't be used.

Patrik Granlöv - 26th June 2007 [«« Reply to this]
The VALUE should always be the value submitted with the form. But IE submits the button text and ignores VALUE. So once again IE has it wrong.

Peter Bencsik - 30th August 2005 [«« Reply to this]
Check this:
http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20001002/017911.html

The funny (and most annoying) is that IE always sends the button, even if it was not pressed. In my example, I always gt removemethod=-, even if I press the normal submit button in the form.

BulletProofPoet - 3rd October 2005 [«« Reply to this]
Thanks for posting this. I thought I was going mad when I saw this behaviour this afternoon. Unfortunately, it took me a couple of hours to disgnose the problems and find this page though!

There's no way IE should post the button field at all if the button wasn't pressed. Just another reason why IE should be taken out and shot!

AngryWithIE - 6th December 2005 [«« Reply to this]
I was going mad as well. So how am I supposed to get a button with text and an image if I can't use the <button> element?

Peter Bengtsson - 6th December 2005 [«« Reply to this]
You can but not collect the correct value. If you just want a button that submits the form, the <button> will do fine.

Chris Hutchins - 7th December 2005 [«« Reply to this]
They are out to drive me insane - with Moz/NS/Firefox I can get a simple button with an image of my choice (I use it for a photo browsing page). I have yet to come up with even a difficult work-around in IE.

Newbie Cobbler - 13th December 2005 [«« Reply to this]
Anybody know if its the case that Firefox does NOT support button/input border attributes - eg., border-left:5 solid#000099 and border-right:5 solid#000099 and similarly top/bottom - IE supports these OK - is there another way of naming these to get same result in Firefox/Netscape such that It will come up in IE as well?

Solange - 1st December 2006 [«« Reply to this]
you need write
eg. border-left:5px solid #000099;

look "5px" and not "5"

Meyaline - 15th January 2006 [«« Reply to this]
>
> Disclaimer: The spec (is too long to
> read) could prove me wrong but I feel
> pretty confident that Firefox has got
> it more right in this instance.
>

The W3C HTML 4.01 specification (1999) says (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#h-17.13.2): "If a form contains more than one submit button, only the activated submit button is successful." (and by submit button, they mean both "<input type="submit" ... />" and "<button type="submit" ...>...</button>", as said here: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#buttons)

It also is in the working draft of HTML 4 (1997)... (maybe a bit less clear, as they only say so for "<input type="submit" ... />", and say the "button" element works pretty much the same -well, not that unclear, AFAIC)

Anyway, I do wonder how it is of any use, to send the name/value of every submit buttons... Yet another proof that Microsoft just want to screw the world...

Heck, they are members and contributors of the W3C (and took part in the developpment of the HTML specifications), one would expect they at least properly implement such basic rules... well, they don't even do that... (and the worst is that it is purely intented)

Why in the world did I choose to become a webmaster...? :/

Random Penguin - 17th January 2006 [«« Reply to this]
THE SOLUTION TO THE IE BUTTON TAG DISPLAY VALUE/TEXT PROBLEM !!!!

Hi folks,
Here is a solution that works in IE.
I recommend using JavaScript or server-side code to detect the browser, since this code will not work in non-JavaScript browsers, whereas <button> code will.

<input type=submit name="buttonName" value="buttonValue" onclick="this.style='display: hidden';this.value='buttonValue'; this.submit()">

infinite - 17th January 2006 [«« Reply to this]
using that javascript method that "Random Penguin" provided is kinda silly .. buttons disappearing when clicked .. no thanks ..
i had the same problem between IE and FF, <input type=image name=button value=something> FF will sucessfully create a POST variable named 'button' with the value 'something' with 'button.x' and 'buttin.y' while IE only creates the last two ... so i had to switch to the button tag for my image button ... and like mentioned here i had the same probelm .. IE will assume the value of whatever inside the tag and ignore the "value" attribute ... so the simplest solution that comes to mind is setting the text size to 0px using css .. this way both browsers will work and everybody will be happy ... however it's all IE's fault ... i hate that damn thing but as a web developer i have to bend my self in it's favour cuz it's the most used browser out there .. personally i think anybody using it is a damn moron ...

Chris - 19th January 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Another solution is to disable all other submit button in the onClick Event.
But you know, it is all a workaround ...

Chris - 19th January 2006 [«« Reply to this]
For those who are interested:

function disableOtherSubmitButtons(submitButton)
{
if(!submitButton)
{
alert("no object found");
return;
}

if(!submitButton.type)
{
alert("no type attribute");
return;
}

if(submitButton.type != "submit")
{
alert("no submit button");
return;
}

if(!submitButton.form)
{
alert("parentless button (no form)");
return;
}

var formElements = submitButton.form.elements;

for(var i=0; i<formElements.length; i++)
{
//leave the pressed button as is...
if(formElements[i] == submitButton)
continue;

//disable all other submit buttons
if(formElements[i].type == "submit")
{
formElements[i].disabled = "true";
}
}
}

How to use it:
<form action="showRequestVariables">
<button type="submit" name="button1" onClick="disableOtherSubmitButtons(this)">Button1</button>
<button type="submit" name="button2" onClick="disableOtherSubmitButtons(this)">Button2</button>
</form>

Aaron Evans - 31st January 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Yeah, you can disable the other submit buttons, but it still submits the text within the button element, not the text of the value attribute!

This is a real pain because I am trying to determine an "action" based on the value attribute and I might want to reuse the text for different "actions" on different pages but posting to the same "action handler".

Marc Pujol - 8th February 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I've ended using a bunch of tricks wich finally worked pretty well:

1. We will run some javascript only if our browser is IE 5.5>, so we'll add this to header:



2. We'll allways assign the same value to the "class" and "value" tags of the button:

<button name="action" value="add" class="add">
<img src="add.gif" alt="add value" />Add to cart
</button>

3. We'll add this code to the "btnfix.js" file, so that it'll run on window.onload():

window.onload = function() {
var btns = document.getElementsByTagName('button');
for(var i=0;i<btns.length;i++) {
btns[i].onclick = function() {
var bs = document.getElementsByTagName('button');
for (var i=0;i<btns.length;i++) {
if (btns[i] != this)
btns[i].disabled = true;
}
this.innerHTML = this.className;
return true;
}
}
}

Marc Pujol - 8th February 2006 [«« Reply to this]
There's a typo in the script, where line 5 says: "var bs = ..." it should be "var btns = ..."

With all this we end up having fully functional buttons in IE and any other browser (that handles buttons correctly, like all gecko/khtml based ones). The only counterpart (and only in IE) is that our button will "unrender" itself just before sending the form (when our script changes it's innerHTML so it sends the correct value)

Tom - 15th February 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I found another possible solution for the problem:
Encapsulate every button in its own form. So instead of
<form action="showRequestVariables">
<button type="submit" name="button1">Button1</button>
<button type="submit" name="button2">Button2</button>
</form>

you write

<form action="showRequestVariables">
<button type="submit" name="button1">Button1</button>
</form>
<form action="showRequestVariables">
<button type="submit" name="button2">Button2</button>
</form>

IE now posts the correct values (at least that worked for me).

Jon Haugsand - 23rd February 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Tom's solution is problematic when you have a table where each row have a submit button, and the other rows may or may not have input fields.

This should be quite common.

- Jon

Chris Doors - 10th March 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Yes this is blooming annoying;
Here's what I did;

I pairred each button tag with a hidden input field in the following way:

<button onClick='buttonTagClicked(this.name)' type='Submit' name='something1~button'>Submit</button>
<input type=hidden id=something1 name=something1 value=0>';

<button onClick='buttonTagClicked(this.name)' type='Submit' name='something2~button'>Submit2</button>
<input type=hidden id=something2 name=something1 value=0>';

And wrote this javascript function:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">

function buttonTagClicked(field)
{
var fieldsarray=field.split("~");

document.getElementById(fieldsarray[0]).value=1;
}
</script>

Then when the button is submited it updates the related hidden field to 1. You can then use the hidden field variables to find which button tag was pressed as it will have value of 1.

We should not have to do this but IE is obviously cr*p. Hope this helps

Peter Bengtsson - 10th March 2006 [«« Reply to this]
That's a very complex solution. Is there a reason for this example that you haven't used any of the functionality of <button> tag over a <input type="submit" one?

Chris Doors - 10th March 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I removed all the images and such from between my button tags as would have made comment too large and ugly. If I didn't want all the button tag's functionality then I would have used the input tag as you suggest. Hope my code helps a bit.

Robert Polomsky - 24th March 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Hmm, quite nice, Chris. I will try it.
I had another solution. Better code, but it redraw button for a moment between clicking and disappearing of old page. Maybe somebody could improve it.

function submitForm() {
var e = document.getElementById('btnAction0');
e.value = e.attributes['value'].value;
}

<form method="get" action="login.cgi" onsubmit="submitForm()">
<button type="submit" id="btnAction0" name="action" value="login">Login me</button>
</form>

( be sure you don't use function name: "submit()" )

Chris Doors - 17th May 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I have cleaned up my code in previous example.

This is used if you have multiple button tags submitting the same form, so you can tell which button has submited form.

<form method="POST">
<input type=hidden id="submitbuttonpressedvalue" name="submitbuttonpressedvalue">

<button type="submit" onClick='buttonTagClicked(this.realvalue)' name='continuebutton' realvalue='continue'><img src="whatever.gif"></button>
<button type="submit" onClick='buttonTagClicked(this.realvalue)' name='backbutton' realvalue='back'><img src="whatever.gif"></button>
</form>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">

function buttonTagClicked(buttonvalue)
{

document.getElementById('submitbuttonpressedvalue').value=buttonvalue;
}

</script>

Now in the post vars the realvalue of the button pressed should be in the
'submitbuttonpressedvalue' post var.

I think that's correct

Richard Williams - 15th November 2007 [«« Reply to this]
I'm rather late finding this problem. Chris' solution works fine for IE6 etc. but fails for FireFox. I have both value=".." and realvalue=".." Then in my PHP script I test for submitbuttonpressedvalue="undefined" when I know it's not IE and get the proper POST variable value otherwise I use the submitbuttonpressedvalue.

FataL - 29th March 2006 [«« Reply to this]
IE 7 beta 2 solved that problem that submit all buttons by pressing one.
BUT there STILL one more poblem: IE 7 beta 2 still submit innerHTML of BUTTON instead of value attribute. :-/ DAMN!
BTW, try Dean's Edwards IE7 lib - it's solve all this issues:
http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/

Rich - 29th April 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I just got bit by this bug today, took me a while to figure out what was going on. I was using <button> for precisely the reason that it lets you set a different label ("Edit Foo") from its value ("edit-<foo's id>").

My solution was this bit of javascript:

function submitAndRedirect(submitButtonID, redirectCode) {
        var submitButton = document.getElementById(submitButtonID);
        var redirectElementID = "input_submit_redirect_" + submitButton.form.id;
        if (document.getElementById(redirectElementID)) {
                document.getElementById(redirectElementID).value = redirectCode;
        } else {
                element = document.createElement("input");
                element.name = "submit_redirect";
                element.id = redirectElementID;
                element.type = "hidden";
                element.value = redirectCode;

                submitButton.form.appendChild(element);
        }
}

Then changed the <button> code to:

<input type="submit" id="button_99_edit" name="submit" value="Edit Foo" onclick="submitAndRedirect('button_99_edit', 'edit-99')"/>

It creates a hidden form item that my server-side code can look for, and gives it the value 'edit-99'.

I *would* add this to my list of items I'm praying Microsoft fixes in IE 7, but I don't think there's room left. It's already so big.

Peter Bengtsson - 30th April 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Shame it doesn't work without javascript though.

You could make it much simpler if you'd just write you input tag like this:

<input type="submit"
name="99"
value="Edit this"
onclick="this.value=this.name;this.name='idvalue'"
/>

...or I just don't understand your particular application problem.

Rich - 15th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
I didn't want the user to see the name of the button suddenly change to a piece of code the moment it's clicked on. My solution involves a longer bit of javascript, but it's a one-time cost since every page that uses just links to a site-wide .js file, and the in-button portion is pretty simple. Plus it's completely transparent to the user.

I've made a slight change to it, in that the button HTML code is now:

<input type="submit" id="button_99_edit" name="submit" value="Edit Foo" onclick="submitAndRedirect(this.id, 'edit-99')"/>

(Replaced hard-coded ID with this.id)

Daniel Danopia - 10th May 2009 [«« Reply to this]
Just pass 'this' and then you don't have to do an ID lookup.

Jeff - 14th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
Thank you for this solution. This has had me stumped for a few days. I think I still have a few hairs left that didn't get pulled out.

Dromyl - 28th June 2006 [«« Reply to this]
hey guys,
when i use <button> in FF with my ASP.Net App. The page is getting unecessarily refreshed.
where as it works fine with IE.

I have numbers of <button> tag in my page, i mean they are getting created dynamically.

Coz m using the btn tag just 2 call a javascript so i dont want page to be refreshed.

Any Comments/workarounds.

Jyoti - 28th August 2006 [«« Reply to this]
You can add attribute type="button" inside the button tag, then ur problem could be solved.

srbardo - 11th July 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I`m another annoyed web developer who whas about to going mad due to Microsoft incompetents, getting the same problems as you with multiple input and button values submits.

I think i´ll use the id property as it was the value property, plus hidden inputs and JavaScript code.

Thx for the info and up the FireFox!

Joerg - 13th July 2006 [«« Reply to this]
The really annoying this is: Why didn't M$ fix this bug in IE6 two years ago in one of its countless Windows updates?

I "solved" the problem by using simple <input> buttons instead of <button> buttons.

Anonymous - 19th July 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Add me to the list. MS implementation causes the use of button to be useless. Using the button element allows us to have a label independent of the value attribute.

And you can't create standards-compliant table-filled forms with IE's implementation of button.

VERY PO'D

stereopixel - 3rd August 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I needed this for image buttons.

My version of it, which I think is simple and effective (thanks to all the previous contributors) but needs javascript:

function imgClick(value)
{
document.getElementById('IEfix').value = value;
}

<form method="post" action="ACTION.PHP">

<input type='hidden' id='IEfix' name='imageButtonIE' value=''>

<input type='image' src='1.jpg' value='IMG1' name='imageButton' onClick='imgClick(this.value)' />
<input type='image' src='2.jpg' value='IMG2' name='imageButton' onClick='imgClick(this.value)' />
<input type='image' src='3.jpg' value='IMG3' name='imageButton' onClick='imgClick(this.value)' />
<input type='image' src='4.jpg' value='IMG4' name='imageButton' onClick='imgClick(this.value)' />
<input type='image' src='5.jpg' value='IMG5' name='imageButton' onClick='imgClick(this.value)' />

</form>

--------------------------

No need to specify a different name for each image, you get 'imageButton' = value on Firefox, and 'imageButton' = "" on IE.

Then if you check 'imageButtonIE' you get the codename value of the clicked image (you can put there the name, or the index...)

snipes - 13th October 2006 [«« Reply to this]
stereopixel's script doesn't work with the <button> tag. If you try to get the set value for the button with 'this.value' IE will still send the innerHTML from the button tag.

I solved it by using the button tags name as the value instead and then accessing the value with 'this.name'. The server then requests the value from a hidden <input> with a specific name...

cresus - 3rd February 2007 [«« Reply to this]
After reading all the page, it seems to me it is the best solution to this awful bug...

We only want to bypass a bug from IE, and we surely don't want to overload our codes because of it. stereopixel's solution corrected by snipes is quick and keeps everything relatively simple, clean and tidy.

Thanx everybody for your contribution, it helped me a lot ;-)

dada - 24th August 2007 [«« Reply to this]
this is a fantastic solution - thanks

COLOSSUS - 6th May 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Yes, this solution was my salvation, too. :)

Thank you very much!

Paul - 22nd August 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I had this problem today when i was using a php variable as the value using the <input> tag and sending it to another page using GET to be used for a MySQL query. It worked fine in FF but IE didnt want to know.

heres the code...

<input type="image" class="link" src="../viewgallery.gif" name="galname" value="'.$gallery_name.'" />

Thanks to this page giving me some ideas,

All i did was add this line to get it to work in IE...didnt need any javascript!

<input type=hidden id="galname" name="galname" value="'.$gallery_name.'">
</form>

Jesse - 25th August 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I didn't get Pauls solution to work with multiple buttons, but here is my solution without javascript (uses php instead):
<input type='image' alt='img1' src='../images/img1.gif' name='img1' />
<input type='image' alt='img2' src='../images/img2.gif' name='img2' />

and to see which button the user clicked:
if (isset($_POST['img1_x'])) {
unset($_POST['img1_x'],$_POST['img2_y']);
/* do whatever you wan't */
}
else if (isset($_POST['img2_x'])) {
unset($_POST['img2_x'],$_POST['img2_y']);
/* again do whatever you wan't */
}

I have to unset the post values because the user can click first img1 then img2 then again img1 and i just simply sen the whole $_POST array so eventually it would contain both. And still don't get different values, but can play with the different names.

If anyone can make a simpler solution with php i'd be happy to here about it

Keith Lawler - 1st January 2007 [«« Reply to this]
This is terrific! Thank you Jesse! I just used this solution and added the ability to get a value too. What you can do is add the value to the end of the name attribute seperated by a dash. For example if your name is "imagePressed" the new name would be "imagePressed-3". Then call the below function to extract it out.

<input type='image' name='imagePressed-3' src='/btn.gif'>

function getImageButtonValue($formvars, $name) {
// loop through the keys
foreach ($formvars as $key => $value) {
// if key is what you are looking for
if (strstr($key, $name)) {
// extract out the value from the name
$temp = split('-', $key);
// get rid of the _x or _y too
$temp = split('_', $temp[(sizeof($temp)-1)]);
return $temp[0];
}
}
// didn't find anything so return false.
return false;
}

Just becareful if your name attribute or value has dashes or underscores.

Hope this helps!

Rich LaMarche - 29th August 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Here is another variation.

<button type="submit" name="btnContinue" onclick="this.setAttribute('value','continue');"><img src="whatever.gif"></button>
<button type="submit" name="btnBack" onclick="this.setAttribute('value','back');"><img src="whatever.gif"></button>

Doesn't require a hidden field.

Ralph Holz - 30th September 2006 [«« Reply to this]
I find that Rich LaMarche's solution is not yet perfect. E.g. in IE6 - may it burn in hell - it does not work if you want to use two buttons with the same name. Example:

<button name="choice" type="submit" value="submitLogin" onClick="this.setAttribute('value', 'submitLogin');">1</button>

<button name="choice" type="submit" value="submitCancel" onClick="this.setAttribute('value', 'submitCancel');">2</button>

I use a MVC architecture and "choice" is the variable that I use to determine which step to take next. If you try to do it as above, even with Rich's patch, IE6 will still overwrite "choice" with the innerHTML of the second button ("2"), and that will be the value of "choice".

However, the following works: change the name attribute to something else, e.g. "choiceV". Then:

<button name="choiceV" type="submit" value="submitLogin" onClick="this.setAttribute('value', 'submitLogin'); this.setAttribute('name', 'choice');">...</button>

<button name="choiceV" type="submit" value="submitCancel" onClick="this.setAttribute('value', 'submitLogin'); this.setAttribute('name', 'choice');">...</button>

This takes care that only one button will be sent with name "choice", the other one will remain "choiceV", and your controller can use "choice" to properly determine the action to be taken. It does add a short delay to the processing of the page, but does not need JavaScript. Firefox can handle it as well. I dislike such patches immensely, but here I have no choice... but I will add the "Spread Firefox" button to my homepage now.

Arkady Renko - 19th October 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Guys, an enormous thank you for writing about the messed up nature of IE's button support. I spent hours on a problem assuming it was something to do with the way i'd set my sessions.. when it turns out that quite simply IE was sending the wrong value to my session variable. You've just saved me more hours of heartache

Cheers

Anonymous - 20th November 2006 [«« Reply to this]
tada!
this work !!!

button.endsWith("Seguir")

<button type="submit" name="button" value="Seguir"><img src="images2/right-blue.gif"> Seguir</button>

Sina Salek - 30th December 2006 [«« Reply to this]
Hi, thanks for all the solutions,
I like Ralph Holz solution, i think it's useful and easy so i improved it to a general way with no extra code require. only one function which works only in IE. it will change name of the button tags to something unique for preventing duplication. and then adds a js codes to each button onClick attribute. this event function is able to fetch value of button via regex and add hidden field with that value before submitting form.
hope it helps...

<script type="text/javascript">
//--(Begin)-->fetch value of button via outerHTML
function getButtonTagValue(buttonObj) {
var regexObj = /<[^<]*value="([^"'<>]*)"[^>]*>/;
//'
var match = regexObj.exec(buttonObj.outerHTML);
if (match != null && match.length > 1) {
return match[1];
} else {
return '';
}
}
//--(End)-->fetch value of button via outerHTML

function insertHiddenField(parentObj, name, value) {
var hiddenField = document.createElement('input');
hiddenField.type='hidden';
hiddenField.name=name;
hiddenField.value=value;
parentObj.parentNode.appendChild(hiddenField);
}

function fixIeButtonTagBug(formId) {
if (document.all || 1==1) {
var baseObject=document;
var elms;
var custFunc;

if (formId) baseObject=document.getElementById(formId);
elms=baseObject.getElementsByTagName('button');

if (elms) {
for (var x=0; x<elms.length; x++)
if (elms[x].tagName=='BUTTON') {
//this.setAttribute('value', getButtonTagValue(this)); this.setAttribute('name', '"+elms[x].name+"');
custFunc=new Function(
"insertHiddenField(this,'"+elms[x].name+"',getButtonTagValue(this));"+
"return true;"
);

elms[x].onclick=custFunc;
elms[x].name='___fixIeButtonTagBug___';
}
}
}
}

if (window.addEventListener)
window.addEventListener("load", function() {fixIeButtonTagBug();}, false)
else if (window.attachEvent)
window.attachEvent("onload", function() {fixIeButtonTagBug();})
</script>

Abraham J. - 31st December 2006 [«« Reply to this]
This is ever SHIT , but I have nestled a form in a form ... not clean job but it works, and have two working submit buttons.
Works in Windows browser and Firefox

Dan H. - 8th January 2007 [«« Reply to this]
Hello Abraham, you're solution works except in Internet Explorer 5.2 for the Mac.

The site I'm working on only has about 0.11% of sessions using Mac IE. So may not be a big deal. Depends on your site.

Chad Lester - 21st October 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Were you doing something like this?

<form>
<input type="text" name="t" value="test">
<form><button type="submit" name="b" value="1">Button 1</button></form>
<form><button type="submit" name="b" value="2">Button 2</button></form>
</form>

I found that nesting forms inside forms does not solve the problem. In IE6 if the user clicks on the second button, the values from the input element are not sent.

minghong - 5th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
Hi guys, I found that by re-assigning outerHTML of the button element, the value can be fixed automagically.

e.g. forms["form"].onsubmit = function( e )
{
var button = document.activeElement || e.explicitOriginalTarget; // Get the button being pressed (work for IE, Mozilla and Opera only)
alert( button.value ); // The value is wrong
if ( window.ActiveX )
{
button.outerHTML = button.outerHTML;
}
alert( button.value ); // The value is correct
return false; // Just for testing
}

minghong - 5th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
Typo. Please change "ActiveX" to "ActiveXObject". ;-)

Robert Colburn - 6th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
I use <button>s for management interfaces. So, the typical case is that I'm displaying several records in a table, and I need the button to identify which record to work on. This was requires no JavaScript, and works on all tested browsers.

This is in php, but it's pretty easy to port to something else.

// Example Form Code Before
foreach($records as $rec)
//Display Fields
echo '<button type="submit" name="save" value="'.$rec['id'].'">S</button>';
echo '<button type="submit" name="del" value="'.$rec['id'].'">X</button>';

// Example Form Code After
foreach($records as $rec){
//Display Fields
echo '<button type="submit" name="save'.$rec['id'].'">S</button>';
echo '<button type="submit" name="del'.$rec['id'].'">X</button>';

//---------------

// Example Processing Code Before
if(isset($_REQUEST['del']){
$rec = $_REQUEST['del'];
//remove code
}

// Example Processing Code After
if(isset($_REQUEST['del']){
foreach($_REQUEST['del'] as $rec){
//remove code
}
}

Robert Colburn - 6th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
oops
// Example Form Code After
foreach($records as $rec){
//Display Fields
echo '<button type="submit" name="save['.$rec['id'].']">S</button>';
echo '<button type="submit" name="del['.$rec['id'].']">X</button>';

Travis Miller - 13th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
According to the spec, you're correct - you can have more than one submit button in a form:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#submit-button

...and it shouldn't matter whether you use the <input> tag or the <button> tag.

Also infuriating: when clicking on <button type="submit" value="theValue">ButtonText</button> in IE6, it submits "ButtonText" as the value of the button, rather than "theValue". Ghod, IE sucks.

Gpali - 16th March 2007 [«« Reply to this]
Another way in PHP

while (list($key, $value) = each(${"HTTP_".$REQUEST_METHOD."_VARS"})){

// Microsoft Internet Explorer don't likes <button></button> http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/forms.html#buttons
// use for name="key" value="value" -> name="#key|value"

if(substr($key,0,1) == "#"){
$aKeyValue = iErepair(substr($key,1));
$key = $aKeyValue[0];
$value = $aKeyValue[1];
$$key = $value;

}
}

// -- IE Button Repair
function iErepair($varName){
$array = explode("|",$varName);
$key = $array[0];
$value = $array[1];
return $array;
}

Castwide - 24th July 2007 [«« Reply to this]
I've been experimenting with JavaScript solutions to the button problem, but this one trumps them all. Thanks.

Simon Bettison - 24th September 2007 [«« Reply to this]
This is by far the most elegent solution imo. It doeasnt rely on client-side functionality, is invisible to the user and still provides valid xhtml to boot.

If i could be so bold as to provide a slightly leaner alternative:

foreach ($_POST as $key => $val)
if(substr($key,0,1) == "#"){
$bits = explode("|",(substr($key,1)));
unset($_POST[$key]);
$_POST[$bits[0]] = $bits[1];
}

Us oldies hate typing ;)

Chad Lester - 20th October 2008 [«« Reply to this]
I found that this does not solve the problem stated on this blog. IE6 will still submit multiple name/value pairs even if the name is of the form #name|value.

Anonymous - 12th June 2007 [«« Reply to this]
The <button>Hello</button> option makes little sense versus <input type="submit" value="Hello"...>.

In my app what if the 'Value' supports several languages?

<button>Hola</button>
<button>Guten Tag</button>

Should I muddy up my submit logic in my controllers for the sake of internationalization?

Norwegian and mad - 19th October 2007 [«« Reply to this]
Well, I am totally on track with the plogger. IE (whatever version) sucks from here to high heaven. First i noticed the f... getElementById bug that those .... ..... at MS hasn't done anything with since 2003.

And today I experienced the way IE uses the <button>-tag. I used a <a href> tag to link the button, which works - as I guess was the idea - in FF and Opera... IE however....

Adam - 29th October 2007 [«« Reply to this]
Hmm, what's with all the Javascript needed to solve this problem?
======================================
If you are using PHP/ASP etc.. why not just do this...

Firstly, I assume the problem is caused because the Value you want to POST isn't the same Value that appears in the button....

Just use some CSS and a clever bit of parsing when you check $_POST["action"]

HTML CODE:
-------------------------
(Basically we put the real value we want to pass inside brackets within the SPAN)

<button name="action" value="Cancel"><span class='button_ie_fix'>(Cancel)</span>Cancel Operation</button>

CSS:
------------------------
(Now we hide that DIV so nobody can see it)

button span.button_ie_fix{
display:none;
}

PHP/ASP/PERL (Whatever)
-----------------------
Just check $_POST["action"] for <SPAN class='button_ie_fix'>(Cancel)</SPAN> and parse out the (value) in the middle...

Something like...

eregi("<SPAN class='button_hiddenvalue'>$([^$]*)\)</SPAN>",$_POST["action"],$n);

if($n[1]){
$_POST["action"] = $n[1];
}

====================================
At least that way you have something that works without Javascript.. because if Javascript is turned off, you're form won't work....

You might want to set the button up differently so that text only browsers will still make sense of it...

<button name="toolid" value="34442">Big Tool <span class='button_ie_fix'>[34442]</span></button>

With that you just parse out the value inside [ ] plus it looks neat.

Nyahkitty - 11th February 2008 [«« Reply to this]
This discussion is for buttons,
but I found that using image files
painted to look like buttons and with
links attached to them solved the problem.

Multiple "buttons" in a single form. :-)

Nyahkitty - 11th February 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Also, you could use a GIF
with rollover triggers
if you wanted it to animate
like a button.

fishfinger - 11th February 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Image solutions suck massively:
- won't scale with the user's font size
- completely opaque to screen readers
- won't be cross-platform UI
- will need a new image for every language and every state (rollover, click, enabled, disabled, focus, default etc)

monsterchops - 1st March 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Along those lines I can think of a rather interesting thing that I discover about IE. IE will only accept 30 <style> tags ... after that, it simply ignores them. Ok, yes, there are few times when that many are needed or should be needed but it did a number on my brain for a while.

I don't think that having IE submit a name/value pair for each button is much of an issue ... odd, but not a major upset unless you are reading button values on the server-side to activate a process or whatever (I just tend to ignore them). It used to be that if you did not use a value attribute in an IE button that the pair was not sent ... you could try that ... but then there is the catch 22 ... you'd have to dynamically write to the button value onclick etc. for the button that was pressed.

biznuge - 4th April 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Using the hidden form solution with discrete forms for each and every button instance seems to work, but this means using three times the amount of markup. Have stuck with this solution for now as my app is primarily for IE on a corporate net, but it doesn't stop me wanting to jab microsoft in the neck with a sharp object....

Rth - 10th April 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Easy but very ugly solution. using the Onclick event to change the value of the button to wich ever value you want to pass.

<input type="submit" value="Change" name="change" OnClick="this.value='<value you want to post>'">

Sitehatchery - 23rd April 2008 [«« Reply to this]
I've come up with a solution that works in PHP without Javascript in all browsers. I'm sure it would be very easy to do this in other server-side languages as well.

<?php
if(count($_POST['edit'])){
$id=array_flip($_POST['edit']);
sort($id);
echo '<p>edit value is: '.$id[0].'</p>';
}

if(count($_POST['delete'])){
$id=array_flip($_POST['delete']);
sort($id);
echo '<p>delete value is: '.$id[0].'</p>';
}
?>

<form action='test.php' method='post'>
<button type='submit' name='edit[35]' value='35'><img src='edit.gif' /></button>
 <button type='submit' name='delete[35]' value='35'><img src='x.gif' /></button>
</form>

For an explanation, see http://www.sitehatchery.com/blog/index.php/html-button-tag-and-ie-compatibility

kfs - 23rd April 2009 [«« Reply to this]
this is perfect.

KDB - 24th April 2008 [«« Reply to this]
What about doing something like this: set both the value attribute and the innerHTML to the actual value you want to submit.

<button type="submit" name="command" value="comand123">command123</button>

However, make that innerHTML invisible by setting the color equal to the background-color.

style="color: white; background-color: white"

Then use absolute positioning to place some text of the actual button label you want to use right over the button. I know that can be done but I'm not that good with CSS positioning. Perhaps someone can produce a working example.

Anyway, still messy but requires no javascript or any special server side code.

KDB - 24th April 2008 [«« Reply to this]
To answer my own question, the problem with putting text over the button is that the button won't click when the cursor is over the text. I can however position a <label> over the button and set the "for" attribute to the button's "id" attribute. That will submit the button value but you don't get any visual feed back when it's clicked so still not a perfect solution.

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
div.btn { position: relative }
input.btn, button { width: 100px; color: #ddeeff; background: #ddeeff }
label.btn { position: absolute; top: 2px; left: 0px; width: 100px; text-align: center }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h3>Title</h3>
<p>This is some text</p>
<form action="" method="get">
<div class="btn"><input id="123" class="btn" type="submit" name="command" value="123"/><label for="123" class="btn">Howdy</label></div>
<br>
<div class="btn"><button id="123" type="submit" name="command" value="123">123</button><label for="123" class="btn">Howdy</label></div>
</form>
</body>
</html>

dandan - 5th May 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Here is the solution:

do this:

<input type="hidden" name="electionID" VALUE="${electionID}"/>
<button type="submit">Count my votes </button>

So, it will give your input (the hidden stuff) and label the button correctly.

Eric - 16th May 2008 [«« Reply to this]
dandon, that is not a solution. The issue is determining which button was clicked on a form with multiple buttons.

Denes Szabo - 26th May 2008 [«« Reply to this]
onClick="this.value='myrealvalue';" solves the problem. But, the button changes according to 'myrealvalue' but works.

kolibrizas - 9th June 2008 [«« Reply to this]
<input type="hidden" name="actiontype" value="none" id="ietype">
<button type="submit" onclick="document.getElementById('ietype').value='preview';" name="preview">Preview</button>
<button type="submit" onclick="document.getElementById('ietype').value='publish';" name="publish">Publish</button>

this solves the problem as you create a hidden value which changes value depending on the button you clicked. Hope I helped!

Karl Dickman - 26th June 2008 [«« Reply to this]
I have a form that looks something like:
<form method='post' action='Login.php'>
...
<input type='submit' name='action' value='Log in' />
<input type='submit' name='action' value='Reset password' />
</form>

IE7 won't even send the values for the action variable. What's up with that?

Peter - 23rd July 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Remember all those websites that used to tell you that the site has been 'optimized for IE'? Well, f**k IE, I'm putting up a msg that says the site has been 'optimized for FireFox, Safari & Opera'! ;-)

Rajee Jha - 1st September 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Please see this link. I think setting the value attribute explicitly on onClick is the cleanest solution. http://lists.evolt.org/archive/Week-of-Mon-20001002/017911.html

rouven - 19th November 2008 [«« Reply to this]
@Rajee: No, this is working for IE7 but not for IE.

rouven - 19th November 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Args... IE6 is not working i meant ;-)

Tommy - 24th November 2008 [«« Reply to this]
What i did was:
<input type="submit" value="Save" name="submit" class="button" onclick="javascript:document.myform.submit();"/>
Works for me in IE7. dunno about the rest.

Davey - 15th December 2008 [«« Reply to this]
Tommy, your solution works great. Thanks.

Thanks PeterB for this blog post also. I was stumped.

jack - 10th February 2009 [«« Reply to this]
Thanks, you saved my butt... I didn't know what was going on. Works great now!

viktor - 16th February 2009 [«« Reply to this]
this bastard (IE) pissed off me too.... HTML_TAG a href="link_here"HTML_TAGinput type="button" name="delete_resp" value="Delete" HTML_TAG/a
doesn't work in IE.... you can click the button 1000 times, nothing will happen! Advice?

Jim - 18th March 2009 [«« Reply to this]
Rth, your solution seems like the easiest, quickest, dirtiest (appropriate for IE) to me.

I tried it in IE6 and Firefox, with multiple buttons in the form. It works fine. I just check (in PHP) that $_POST['btnName'] = 'btnValueSetByJavascriptOnClick';

A pretty quick and relatively easy re-write.

Cheers! Thanks for the solution, Rth and all. Curse MS.

spot - 4th April 2009 [«« Reply to this]
you guys can also try this approach :)http://thespotontheweb.blogspot.com/2009/04/trouble-using-element-in-ie7.html :

Trouble using <button> element in IE (internet Explorer)
I've been having trouble using the <button> in IE7. The problem is IE always uses the "TEXT" between the <button name="action" value="thevalue" >TEXT</button> as the return value from a form POST, instead of "thevalue".

As I observed this only happens in IE6/7 but not on Firefox and Chrome. I've tried to Google for a work around but I usually get solutions using JavaScript... which I also prefer not to use.

Instead, I used the following to get around the issue:

<button name="action[thevalue]" >TEXT</button>

when submitted the result array will be like this:

Array ( [action] => Array ( [thevalue] => TEXT ))

having the array structure above, all I need to do is to get the "thevalue" key of the variable array "action". Here's how I did it in PHP:

<?php
$parameters = $_REQUEST;
$action = implode(array_keys($parameters['action']));
echo "Value of action: ".$action;
?>

the result will be:
Value of action: thevalue

--

That's all to it... well I hope I have given you another option on how to go around the subject.
Feel free to use the code above, and if you find it useful, I would greatly appriace if you atleast provide a feedback via comment.

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